Audience and speakers at the Florida Climate Summit Orlando 2017 (presented at WindermereSun.com)

(Please click on red links & note magenta)

For those of you who were not able to attend The Florida Climate Summit-Beyond Paris: Taking Local Action in Florida (at East End Market, 3201 Corrine Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, 10:00 am-4:00 pm EDT, Aug. 12, 2017), as part of the Climate Reality Project, but are quite interested in taking part in the future, I’ve managed to have finished uploading the video just today and will be sharing them in this post.

Reason for the event: now that the Trump Administration has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, it is up to the states, cities, and businesses to continue the efforts to solve the climate crisis. This summit was an opportunity to bring together various environmental groups across Florida to share their projects so we can assist one another.

Topics of discussion were:

How to move cities to taking the 100% renewable pledge

Banning fracking

Pricing carbon at the national level

Rooftop solar power in Florida

The speakers and organizations that are involved are:

Chris Castro, Keynote Speaker and Sustainability Director, City of Orlando

Chris Castro presents various projects that’s been established in City of Orlando, such as:

Smart Buildings : The City of Orlando has been awarded two Smart Cities awards and is currently pursuing a variety of additional funding opportunities for Smart Cities initiatives that would assist us in enhancing transportation citywide and beyond. In these pursuits, we are continuing to move forward with building a data-driven infrastructure that will support safer, cleaner and more efficient travel and an improved quality of life for our community.

Orlando Pace Program: the City of Orlando now provides a new set of financial tools to home and business owners to help them lower their utility bills and make our buildings more energy and water efficient through the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program. PACE removes the barriers of high upfront costs and provides low-interest financing to help residents and business owners looking to modernize, mitigate wind damage and improve the energy and water efficiency of their property.

Orlando’s Building Energy & Water Efficiency Strategy (BEWES): BEWES calls on existing commercial, institutional and multi-family buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to track whole-building energy use, report to the City annually and make their information transparent to the real estate marketplace. The policy covers less than five percent of Orlando’s buildings, which account for nearly 50 percent of total energy and water used by all buildings citywide.